Players: AK, SC, HC, AM, JF

Directions: Played in the usual blind folding manner, with one exception. Each player must first pull a tarot card, and then write their their haiku line as an intuitive response to this card. The third player then draws a visual synthesis of the lines. Players: AK, SC, HC, AM, RC

Directions: Played in the usual blind folding manner, with one exception. Each player must first pull a tarot card, or choose a chance sentence from a book, and then draw their panel as an intuitive response to this card or sentence. Players: AK, SC, HC, AM, RC

AHHHHHH

BOG IRON

DRUMMER BOY

ARIZONA

Directions: Each player is one part in a huge machine, and decide silently what noise their own particular machine part makes. When everyone is ready, all begin making their noise at the same time. Afterwards, discuss collectively what shape, function, and origin this machine might have. Once the discussion has ended, draw your idea of the machine’s form.

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CHARACTERISTICS

• Large and round, lots of long arms and things that reach out
• Steam Powered
• Hydraulic processes that occur sometimes, but not always
• Some kind of snipping action
• Small round orbs come out and spin fast, like a weather vane
• Trudging along on long legs
• Is a mechanical animal moves through environment and interacts with things, processes things
• Autonomous machine running under its own will
• Gigantic robotic bug with pincers
• Takes things from environment and presses them into golden bricks, makes the famous yellow brick road behind it.
• Antagonistic to surroundings, imposing its order onto the world
• Attitude of “Just doing a thing”
• Turns life into something pretty, as opposed to truly beautiful
• Giant flea?

ORIGIN

• It seemed like a good idea at the time
• Crawling out of the center of the sun
• Organism began acquiring sticks and rocks and adding to itself, making metal parts and attaching them.
• Worked for so long that it evolved away its intelligence and fused with machine, became mindless
• Has mind but all that’s left for it to think is “I’m doing a good job!”
• Hyper focused
• Too efficient
• Programmed itself in response to an initial impulse

Players: HC, SC, AK, AM, RC

04/28/2022 Dream: I had a dream of a new surrealist game we were playing in Atlanta last night. Small squares were cut out of colored construction paper (bright reds, blues, yellows) and at the center of each color square a chance word or image was also attached. I think we were supposed to write a poem or something that was a synthesis of the feel of the color, and the essence of the word or image? Though the details are somewhat vague now. – SC

03/18/2022 Dream: Someone new had shown up to our Atlanta Wednesday meetings, and had the idea for us to all do improvised noise while also playing Dixie Chicks CDs at high volume. Everyone was like, are you sure…? Also, someone had ordered subs for the group, but the bread was old and soggy. So yeah, everyone was just sitting around the circle, holding soggy subs, looking somewhat perplexed. – SC

https://soundcloud.com/ephemeralityart/wideopenfaces

Players: Aaron Dylan Kearns, James Robert Foster, Hazel Cline, and Steven Cline

(Nothing)

GLOWBABY

POMPEII NIGHT LIFE

NOT AGAIN…

Players: ADK, JF, SC, HC

Featuring: Steven Cline, Hazel Cline, Aaron Dylan Kearns, Juli Maria Kearns, Megan Leach, Steve Morrison

Egregore soundscape: Hazel Cline, Martin Kearns

Egregorrhea #6 – Surrealist Egregores, Or, How To Take A Collect Call Collectively
written by Jason Abdelhadi and narrated by Juli Maria Kearns

Film, editing, original background music: Aaron Dylan Kearns

A common cartoon trope—that hallway of infinite doors. And behind each door, anything can be waiting. Anything at all…In our game version of this, we collectively visualized this space, and then took turns narrating what we each saw on opening a door there, taking care not to have any preconceived ideas about what we would see before opening it. Players: SC, HC

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From Arsenal 4:

“In a well-known game children are invited to examine a picture and find elements in it that are somehow “wrong”: A person standing in midair; a dog reading a book, etc. In our surrealist version of the game, first played on July 1988 in Chicago, each player identifies the “wrong”, or anomalous elements in a ordinary, mass-circulation picture.”

Players: SC, HC, BL, AM, AK, L

– The frogs mouth has opened too wide.

– One thousand moths are pupating inside the rock’s lumps.

– Chocolate ice cream hard, crack.

– The rock face going thru puberty. It’s a confusing time.

– What the hell! That’s some really old milk!

– The carbuncles are frozen.

– The robed couple has been transported back in time and are being photographed because of their unusual garb.

– Shame, for shame, shame, shameful.

– If we don’t look, the paparazzi will let us be.

– I find it strange how that man is using two hands to hold his beverage to his mouth, yet he refuses to share with the dancing couple.

– Why is Jack Nicholson, circa the Shining, staring at me?

– How strange! That dog is not drinking beer, even though it is winter. :O

– The can is empty, but the hollow is bared.

– His hair replanted itself on his dog.

– He is drinking dog pee, unfortunately.

– My house has been taken by beard man.

– Blank space in place of nothing.

– The cult members awaiting the arrival of the sacrificial melon.

– The man on the right (named Balonius) does not have a wife in this forest. C’est bizarre!

– The offering remains unswallowed.

– The heads are barely attached.

– It is a funeral for a hairball.

– They are inside a dinosaur egg, yet they are happy.

– The pores are extended to the extreme and the chicks have nothing to eat.

– Their laughter makes no sound.

– The walls of the cave are not stone. They are soft.

– More cheese rocks are sickening. Too many holes.

– The amnion is missing and the twins fall from the womb.

– There are two bodies, but only one soul.

– Those people don’t know why they’re being photographed.

– Too high up. Cheese rocks.

– The web of rock suds are threatening to swallow up the 80’s.

– How strange that they aren’t looking at the web of rock.

THE RACE

MISERY

VOMITUS MAXIMUS

THE POINT

FLIPPED

• SC, HC, BL, AM, AK, L

(Players: SC, HC, BS, BL, MB)

COMIC STRIPS

(in this variation, we folded over as usual, but also set an overall theme beforehand for each comic)

Directions: Each player in turn draws onto the same sheet of paper with their eyes shut. The players are permitted to see what the others have drawn as the paper is passed around, but must keep their eyes closed when it is their turn to draw. The paper is circulated until all the players agree that the drawing is finished. Each player then gives an interpretation of the image. In this variation on the game, we each wrote one sentence of a haiku structure describing the drawing, folded over to hide our line, and passed on until all 3 lines had been completed. (Players: SC, HC, BS, BL, MB)

Silly Potato
Palm runner defies the sun
Grump-boy floats up up

Yellow brick road opens
Stinky baby on the go
Come on home my dood

Pastry you love me
Existential Bakery
And his labors end

Frog decides the doom
Frog king snorts a trail of thorn
Ants, ants, ants, a feast!

Violence in space
Surfer boy & Miracle
The sun got gets mad

Directions: Using the haiku structure (5-7-5), write a line, fold over to hide your line, and pass until completed. (Players: SC, HC, PC, AH)

In the rain big drops
My hair chewed on by donkeys
the sea slinks away

She is wishing well
Skull made of silk in my eye
Bubbly Trio

Smoke rises with mist
Midnight flight moon shines higher
Something is broken

The mourning dove flies
Whippoorwill sings in the night
She rests on the sand

Undercurrents left
A door half closed is open
Nestled in the down

Thomas meows now
The darkening day elopes
Cactus blooms in spring

Sea snail’s line leaves trails
The road stretches onward up
Ladybug laughs up

Spin the flower up
Can you see the butterfly?
Laughing gull flies away

Directions: Each player pulls a stack of cards from a deck. Player 1 begins telling a story. The number on the card before you is the amount of words you can use. If one pulls and king, queen, etc, then say as many words as you like. Once finished, put the card aside. The next player continues the story, following the same rules. (Players: SC, HC, BS, BL, MB)

THE RABBIT

Once upon a time there was a rabbit who liked to eat thistle and berries in the spring while holding acorns on his hand. He was a violent soul, capable of wanton destruction. Rabbit was really mad one day, and so he ate a purple flower and became a giant beast who roamed both land and sea. When he roamed the sea, he befriended the locals—the local seamen. These seamen were very enthusiastic to make new friends. Yet the seamen were overzealous, and let their virility get away from them. That’s ok! Because Rabbit had them on speed dial. And whenever the seamen are unhappy, rabbit knows where to call them. They play code games. Rabbit is epileptic, and yet he doesn’t even know how to properly wear epaulettes, even though he has asked the doctor about it so many times before. The doctor just keeps reminding Rabbit to eat healthy, because that’s how Rabbit will cure the cancerous mass eating away at his ability to love anyone. So the seamen asked Rabbit whether Octopus really had any stripes. Or was it all a dream? No! It wasn’t all a dream. So the seamen wondered if this all this was really just an allegory for masked fragility. And the rabbit wondered, too.

FINIGAN’S SHIT

“I can’t!”, said the two children playing in the park that one day. Their mother always yelled at them for staying out too long, and for hanging out with Peter Finigan, because he was so mean. So mean, in fact, that once he even stole their mother’s favorite vase, and then used it to create meth. “Yikes! What a world”, said that weird neighbor kid who had hatched a devious plan to kill Finigan’s ego. And they set out with him, concocting their devious plan. The plan consisted of scaring Finigan with a jumping cat. Wow! And it worked. When Cat jumped on Finigan’s face, Finigan shat and peed out his lunch into his armpits. But he was not even embarrassed. No, what really killed his ego was that everyone had laughed. He felt quite vulnerable. So he learned to shit from his ear instead of into his diaper, like his old uncle Claude. Now that he’d found this unique talent, he suddenly realized that he didn’t have to go to school anymore, or to do anything ever again. He could just lay on the ground in the park, and become a log. Having overcome his ego, he rejoiced. He could now live happily. And so, back to the kids. They had caught a centipede rolling along through a mound of offal and feces and sewage, which had gathered in the ditch at the park. Most of the shit had actually come from Finigan, who was now living peacefully in a world of “The End”.

Nonsense word – “Fulaya”

1. IS IT DIURNAL OR NOCTURNAL?
   AM: Diurnal
   SC: Diurnal
   HC: Crepuscular
   JF: Diurnal
2. IS IT FAVOURABLE TO LOVE?
   AM: It is favorable to love!
   SC: Yes
   HC: Definitely not, and it is offended by the question.
   JF: Yes
3. IS IT CAPABLE OF METAMORPHOSES?
   AM: Yes
   SC: Only under a green sky
   HC: It is continuously metamorphosing
   JF: Absolutely. It changes the wind.
4. WHAT ERA IS IT FROM?
   AM: 1920s
   SC: 1930s
   HC: The future era closest to the sun’s supernova
   JF: The Aeon of pthalomandrius
5. WHAT ELEMENT IS IT?
   AM: It is an element of motion. of pure energy.
   SC: Water
   HC: Slime
   JF: Air
6. HOW DOES IT DIE?
   AM: At death it fades away slowly, dissipating its energy to surrounding beings.
   SC: Lost in a mole’s burrow, it starves
   HC: It dies every time it ends.
   JF: It evaporates
7. WHAT ILLNESS DOES IT CALL TO MIND?
   AM: Calls to mind an illness causing anxiety…in the legs.
   SC: Water-sickness
   HC: Bubonic plague or else anything involving boils
   JF: Oversaturated skin magnets
8. WHAT PART OF THE WORLD DOES IT LIVE IN?
   AM: Coastal Caribbean
   SC: Brazil, or thereabouts
   HC: The equator, which it constantly travels along.
   JF: Everywhere, in the air
9. WHAT MIGHT ITS PROFESSION BE?
   AM: Dancer. Or perhaps an extremely rapid waiter or sandwich-maker.
   SC: Counter of beans in a white cloak
   HC: Clerk or calligrapher
   JF: Bridge Consultant (after it happens to them)
10. IN WHAT MATERIAL DO YOU SEE IT WRAPPED?
    AM: Sachets, tropical leaves, shiny fabric or silk.
    SC: Transparent plastic wrap
    HC: A mud and saliva nest
    JF: Molten tinsel, aged, and pounded to dust after hardening for 7 years.
11. HOW WOULD YOU KILL IT?
    AM: By ignoring it, by not letting it connect with you.
    SC: Remove its dreams
    HC: Talk over it
    JF: By ignoring its song
12. HOW DOES IT GET AROUND?
    AM: It travels along sound vibrations and electromagnetic radiation.
    SC: Flies, flutters, floats
    HC: It scuttles on its wavelimbs
    JF: Flights on abstract breezes.
13. WHAT SCENT GOES WITH IT?
    AM: Almonds, humidity, good cooking.
    SC: Fruity, vaguely mango scent
    HC: Ambergris and mugwort smoke
    JF: Burnt wood from a fire last night mixed with a parent’s cologne you smelled as a child

Word in a language not understood by participants – “Namazu”

Listen to pronunciation here

1. IS IT DIURNAL OR NOCTURNAL?
   AM: Nocturnal
   SC: Nocturnal
   HC: Nocturnal, but only wakes every other night.
   JF: There is no sun where it lives… moot question.
2. IS IT FAVOURABLE TO LOVE?
   AM: It is favorable to love. But love must be earned.
   SC: Not very, somewhat irritable towards love
   HC: Yes, but only when its sleeping.
   JF: It is indifferent.
3. IS IT CAPABLE OF METAMORPHOSES?
   AM: It’s not capable of metamorphosis.
   SC: Yes, but each time it gets smaller and contains less light.
   HC: No, it is solidified and has been for years.
   JF: Yes. But only when death is on the line…
4. WHAT ERA IS IT FROM?
   AM: It came into being in the 1600s.
   SC: 1940-1960
   HC: 1890’s
   JF: Before we knew…
5. WHAT ELEMENT IS IT?
   AM: Rock element with flowing water within.
   SC: Earth
   HC: Earth/Stone
   JF: Metallic ore
6. HOW DOES IT DIE?
   AM: At the end of its life, it cracks open and from it flows a stream.
   SC: Plane crash
   HC: It is broken into syllables and scattered.
   JF: It doesn’t
7. WHAT ILLNESS DOES IT CALL TO MIND?
   AM: A sudden and mildly painful loss of the knuckles.
   SC: Viral diamond shattering.
   HC: Eczema or leprosy or dandruff, something crusty.
   JF: Bloomsfield-Jordson Syndrome
8. WHAT PART OF THE WORLD DOES IT LIVE IN?
   AM: At the edge of the Arctic.
   SC: Arctic
   HC: The Mariana Trench
   JF: The center of a ball of hot stuff.
9. WHAT MIGHT ITS PROFESSION BE?
   AM: Brick wall builder, or maybe teacher.
   SC: Burner of overcooked steaks
   HC: Fish cake pounder or pharmacist addicted to drugs
   JF: There are no professions there…
10. IN WHAT MATERIAL DO YOU SEE IT WRAPPED?
    AM: A moss fabric, dark green and soft.
    SC: Yarn
    HC: Wax paper first and then phylo dough
    JF: Rock
11. HOW WOULD YOU KILL IT?
    AM: Throw it off a cliff. Or scream at it intensely till it cracks.
    SC: Hit over the head with mallet or anvil.
    HC: With a strong wind.
    JF: Again, it doesn’t die…
12. HOW DOES IT GET AROUND?
    AM: It rolls itself around, but only when nobody is looking.
    SC: Miniaturized Airplane
    HC: It rolls, but can only go downhill.
    JF: Words fail here, I cannot explain.
13. WHAT SCENT GOES WITH IT?
    AM: Pine, freshness, mint
    SC: Decay and rot
    HC: Meat roasting on a campfire
    JF: The smell of asphalt after a summer rain.
14. WHAT COLOR IS IT?
    AM: Dark grey
    SC: Greenish grey
    HC: Dark purpley maroon
    JF: Speckled gray with streaks of orange.

[ Namazu was translated after the game, and discovered to mean Catfish in Japanese.]

Directions: Spin the game wheel. Begin telling an automatic story using the words or images which the wheel lands on. At a point that feels natural, pass on the game wheel to the next player, who continues the story. (Players: SC, HC, AM, JF. Board created by ML.)

THE EARTHWORM
Last evening I was going through the woods and I saw such distinctive foliage. It was green, and yellow, and it seemed to bubble out from the back of the woods. It almost had a fizz, yes, like a fizz from a coca-cola, and yet green. I have a hard time explaining. And as I was walking through these woods, I looked down, and I saw an earthworm that was pulling along a key. I went to grab at the key, but the earthworm told me no. He said that this key was for a very special box hidden deep underneath the base of a tree. And that it held something very important. I asked the earthworm what was so special about the thing which the box held. And the earthworm told me that it held the scale of Ancient Alligator, who’s body had been used to create everything on this earth. At the same time, I was undergoing experimental hypnosis. I just didn’t know what to think what to think of all this. I didn’t really know if I trusted the earthworm. Thought that maybe he was underdressed. His nakedness was very strange to me. And so I stuck him inside a pyramid, an upside own pyramid in fact, and then I spun it all into the air, without care. And it became a polka dot, inside of cloud. Black, sliming, and then…at that very moment, he awoke. Such a strange dream about earthworms, and keys, and alligators! He sat up in his bed, and looked down at his ordinary frog legs. He jumped out of bed, and got breakfast. He was happy to be just a normal frog again, in a frog world.

THE BUTTERFLY DAUGHTER
My daughter was a butterfly. She had white wings with black spots on them. And she hungered for the nectar of the flowers in the meadow next to our small abode. She wanted me to take her out to those flowers, so that she could have some moments of peace. I agreed to take her to this field of flowers. We were dancing lightly among the petals, sipping in the scents, tasting the dew. It was all very peaceful, until suddenly something awoke in the darkness, in the darkness beneath us. It was a bat, and in the bat’s mouth? There was one protruding wing. The wing of my daughter. Despairing, I went in for a dip. A dip into the cold, black pond. There were no tadpoles there, or at least, they had all now gone. Becoming fragrant, without their butterflies. That saltwater salamander… As I waded there in the pond, contemplating loss, I saw that salamander open his mouth. And I swear to god—it was human teeth that I saw in there. And all of this…the wings of my daughter…the bat with human teeth…it all overwhelmed me. I fled that field of flowers, which had used to beckon me so. It had now become only a symbol of despair and death and injustice. And I fled into the pond, and I became a frog there, and I swam down to the silt at its very bottom and then buried myself. Now, I only come out every once in awhile, when I have to feed. And when I look over at that meadow of flowers, I feel the pain of what used to be… The worst part of it all? I know that everything has human teeth.

Directions: Using the haiku structure (5-7-5), write a line, fold over to hide your line, and pass until completed. (Players: AM, SC, HC)

Saturn stops its spin
A shipwreck or bodywreck
Burn after reading!

The sullen face looks
Wind waits in white bird’s entrails
Now I need to leave

Listen to me
Comfort is an unknown substance
Catalyst of dreams

A chorus of bees
Never blinking more than once
Dog days of summer

A whispering stone
Do you dare to look at it?
Bold yet lacking time

Death is possible
There is a thing that grows there
Tiny insects bite

Nostrils drink the sea
Asleep in the vines I lay
A signal is lost

Here is a story:
But look, a net has been cast
Hedgehog’s spine gone south

Of organic waste
A wardrobe catches a cold
Lift me to the sky

Thunderstruck am I
Please don’t remind me of that!
A crackle, a hiss

Butterfly whisper
Tetter-totter goes the cat
The cord is broken

A tree has fallen
I may never see the end
Hand is not weapon

Directions: In a state of light trance, begin verbally telling an automatic story. When one player pauses, the other player jumps in. (Players: AM, HC, SC)

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Each player in turn draws onto the same sheet of paper with their eyes shut. The players are permitted to see what the others have drawn as the paper is passed around, but must keep their eyes closed when it is their turn to draw. The paper is circulated until all the players agree that the drawing is finished. Each player then gives an interpretation of the image. (Players: AM, HC, SC)

Collectively, imagine that a tiny utopian city made of steam is floating near the ceiling. Automatically describe its architectural forms, its inhabitants, etc. Decide on its name. (Players: HC, SC)

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Poetry Game: Each player speaks one line of a poem. The next person in the circle must use at least use one word from the previous line in their sentence.

Drawing Music Game: Begin drawing, focusing collectively only on the sound which your pens are making as your draw, ignoring the drawing’s visual qualities. Some players are assigned a bell which they can ring at any time they choose. When a bell rings, all players must pass their current drawing to the person sitting next to them.

(Players: AM, SC, HC, MB, JF, K, BL)

The Drawings

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Philosophy Podcast Game: Each player chooses a book of dense philosophy. Begin an automatic conversation with one another, not caring for sense making, only caring for keeping up the conversational tone and poetic discovery. Flip to random pages in your book throughout the process, interspersing keywords from it into your automatic speech at certain points. Do not rely too heavily on the book, this will slow down the process. Look at the words on the page absentmindedly without understanding the contents. It serves as a pile of keywords to be dipped into when imagination fails, or the time intuitively feels right. (Players: HC, SC)

Directions: Crumble up a blank sheet of paper. Begin drawing, using the lines which the have formed via crumbling it as a guide for your drawing. At any time, any player may yell “pass”, causing everyone to pass their current drawing on to the person next to them. (Players: AM, SC, HC, MB, JF, K, BL)

Directions: Players choose a symbolic “title” for an unknown character. They then fold and pass to the next player, who blindly writes the “real” identity of that title. (Players: AM, SC, HC, MB, JF, K, BL)

The rotating black hole centipede
Is Ted Cruz

The conductor of honey bees and yawning babes
Is Bilbo Baggins

The prideful, condescending blue whale of the northern hemisphere
Is Papa Smurf

The lamb before time
Is K

The catcher of lost doves and children
Is Charlie Chaplin

The most prolific dildo user in the southern hemisphere
Is Walt Disney

The boisterous planet-consuming pink flamingo
Is Kanye West

The weaver of the world’s most hollow mask
Is Curt Sherman

The perpetual over-thinker, over-drinker, and killer of baby seals
Is Hideo Kojima

The one-legged, three-wormed chimpanzee with a trumpet who plays incessantly around 3 in the morning
Is Bobo the Clown

The fearsome flatulator of eternal stink, the gaseous generator of anal funk
Is Loki

The plagiarizing, french cadillac-driving war monger
Is Pamela Anderson

The destroyer of tiny, insignificant ants
Is Alvaro